Clare Short

Clare Short (15 February 1946-) was the Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood from 10 June 1983 to 12 April 2010, succeeding John Sever and preceding Shabana Mahmood.

Biography
Clare Short was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England in 1946, the daughter of Irish Catholic parents from County Armagh. She worked as a civil servant for the Home Office until 1983, when she decided to run for Parliament as a Labour Party candidate. She was elected MP for Birmingham Ladywood, the area where she grew up, and she was initially a staunch left-winger. Short campaigned against tabloid nudity in The Sun, for which she was nicknamed "Killjoy Clare", and, in 1989, she campaigned against the miscarriage of justice by the Birmingham police. She went on to serve on the Labour front bench during the 1980s and 1990s, although she resigned twice, due to the 1988 Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Gulf War. During Tony Blair's premiership, Short went on to serve as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003, and she resigned from the party in 2003 due to her opposition to the Iraq War. She sat as an independent until 2010, and she was strongly rebuked by her former party for her support for a hung Parliament rather than holding a new election; she retired before the 2010 election.